Visit to Emphusheni
(Sunday, 20 May 2007)
Text of report letter to Rockport church:
Sanibona, Rockport! ...
Sunday was a warm and very bright day in KwaZulu-Natal, beginning to be windy as a series of storm fronts is beginning to work their way up the coast from the Cape, a thousand miles to the southwest. By the end of the day, it was getting perceptibly cooler.
The drive to Emphusheni is not a difficult one, certainly nothing to compare with the more rural destinations we’ve been visiting over the past weeks. From where we stay, at Umhlanga just north of Durban, we take the interstate-style main coastal highway which swings inland a bit through the suburbs of the municipality and on down just past the airport to the south of town, then leaving the highway to go a short distance through the industrial area of Isipingo, and then inland through originally Indian and then black African housing areas of Isipingo in the direction of the sugar cane farming area at Umbumbulu. Just before reaching the junction with the main route inland towards Umbumbulu, we’re in a semi-rural area, now more clearly attached to the city than to the countryside, which is the location of the Emphusheni main church and, not that far removed, its four outstations.
We had come to Emphusheni by appointment to address the congregation to bring greetings from their new i3L relationship ‘matched’ church at Rockport, and to speak with some of the designated and potential contact persons for the relationship at Emphusheni.
When we arrived, we saw that the large gum (eucalyptus) trees that loom over the manse and the front of the church enclosure were still there, branches brought down by the recent high winds interspersed among the large and uneven roots. The plan, as we'd heard it when we visited here last July, had been to have these trees removed to make way for a mushroom-growing income generation project, but we learned today that with the delay in the removal, they’d begun the mushroom project at another branch church instead. They still hoped to get the trees removed, though, and the disruptive roots and continuing risk of falling limbs eliminated, in time for the Iziphika conference for KZN which is to be at the church July 6-8. (Iziphika is describable as the youth auxiliary to Isililo, the main women’s organization in the Zulu churches of the UCCSA, but it’s of course a bit more complicated than that. This will be a massive meeting with perhaps 2000 in attendance, and the planning for it is a major effort of the congregation.)
We (and Rev. Susan Cartmell of the Needham church, who is visiting for a few days) were warmly greeted on our arrival, including by a number of familiar faces from last year’s visits. In due course it became clear that both Rev. and Mrs. Luvuno would not be attending this morning’s service, and it turned out that the service would only involve the central church members. Rev. Luvuno had been summoned to an emergency meeting of one of the regional organizations at another church the other side of Durban, and Nomfundo was in bed with a bad cold. She did drag herself up early afternoon, while we were being fed by Mrs. Miya and other women of the church, using the manse kitchen, and so we got a chance to meet with Nomfundo after the service, but at that time she looked appropriately miserable, and we tried to keep that short.
The circumstance of a church making do without the presence of the minister is, however, a usual enough one in the experience of the Zulu churches, not the least because of the circuit organizations under which even the central church cannot expect to have the minister in attendance, nor leading the service, on most Sundays. So Cyril Mwandla, the Circuit Secretary (an elected position which has him serving as the primary lay administrator for the Circuit), and Eric Miya, the Treasurer, were well experienced, and took charge of the service for the day, with Eric as the officiating deacon.
So we joined the gathering parishioners inside the church, and had the opportunity to greet the Sunday school class and their teacher, Pretty Mhlongo. They were still in session as we entered, and they sang a special chorus in Ruthann’s honor. After Sunday school concluded, the children remained seated in place through the two hour plus service that followed.
After greeting many of those present individually, we listened to and sometimes joined in the hymns and choruses that were being sung as we waited for the service to get underway. One especially meaningful time as we waited, was the singing, in isiZulu, of ‘Blest be the tie that binds,’ with the wonderful voices blending with the familiar tune, sounding both expected and surprising to hear it here, and in this manner Our hearts were indeed 'filled with Christian love.'
Most of the preparations for the service seemed to have been completed, but at one stage, Cyril Mwandla came in from the side room, the little alcove where things are stored, and unfolded a white needlework tablecloth and placed it on the table up beyond the altar rail, between the pulpit and lectern (this became the table at which Eric Miya sat as he officiated the service). Cyril adjusted the cloth a couple of times, and went out again. Shortly thereafter, one of the female deacons came out, stopped, looked at the cloth, looked at it again, and then took hold and turned the whole thing clockwise one turn, readjusted the corners and edges, stepped back for another look, and went out again. A comment on the way of things.
With the music especially, it is quite pleasant to begin the time in church here with the opportunity to sit and listen, and here and then to join in, getting into the sense of the place and the worship time to come. In due time, Eric entered and took his place at the front table, and Cyril took his seat on the deacons’ pew on the front right; we were seated, as is our habit, on the front left where we’d hoped to be sitting with Nomfundo but were by ourselves, with Susan, this morning. While this puts Jan as well on the ‘women’s’ side of the seating arrangements, it seems to be acceptable for us and, by this means, puts us close to the Isililo leadership which tends to be in the front rows of that side, and we always want to have the chance to speak with them, in particular about the initiating and growing of a prayer connection between the participating churches.
The service proper begins. After initial hymns, prayers, and the singing of the Lord’s Prayer, and the announcements and particular reminders about the upcoming Iziphika conference, Cyril gave an extensive re-introduction of us to the congregation of the central church, including with an explanatory background reminding of the historical links of their church, through the American Board, with the Congregational churches in Massachusetts. Jan was allowed the time to bring greetings from the Massachusetts churches generally and Rockport specifically, and to present a map with the location and images of the Rockport church, and importantly to present the items – church directory, pictures, and two computer discs with more photos including of the display banner about ‘i3L’ and Emphusheni in particular, in the parish hall at Rockport – that we’d been asked to bring over from their brothers and sisters at Rockport. A high point was reading out specific prayer requests made on behalf of parishioners at Rockport, for inclusion in the Emphusheni church’s prayers that day and week, and an additional letter of greeting from Rev. Rona Tyndall.
Jan also took the time to remind them of the sequence of visits and contacts over the past year to begin the connection of Emphusheni and Rockport, and of the intentions and hopes for ways in which the direct relationships between the two churches, and the people of the two churches, could deepen and broaden over the coming months and years. The now standard flourish of an appeal to the spirit of Ephesians 2:19, was included. After Jan was done, Cyril gave a summary interpretation in isiZulu, and a 'vote of thanks' for the presentation, the visit, and the efforts towards the new relationship with Rockport.
After a further hymn and the offering, with choruses for that, Eric gave a brief homily on a text from Deuteronomy – which was, then, the sermon for the day – and with a further hymn, the service concluded.
It was time to spring into action. Ruthann pursued the youth leadership in attendance, to re-establish contact with them (we’d seen them at the first meeting last year, but not when we returned for the circuit-wide service at the end of July), to get additional contact information and to talk about the connection effort. And having warned those attending, in the earlier greetings, that we’d be trying to make a phone call just after the service to get the Emphusheni folks to speak with one or more parishioners, up early and waiting for this, at the Rockport church, to give them each a chance to speak briefly, to say hello and make a first contact (following up on an earlier call from some weeks ago, that Rev. Tyndall and a number of folks from Rockport had had with Rev. and Mrs. Luvuno, to extend this to some further folks ‘from the pews’ here at Emphusheni) – well, now it was time to make sure folks couldn’t run out without trying this. One does get dubious looks, sometimes, both here and at the Massachusetts churches when we’ve done it, in reverse, at that end.
But the Spirit protects such foolish endeavors, we’ve come to believe. In any event, in time after a series of misadventures with the dialing with our prepaid cell phone and the SA access arrangements for our calling service (I ended up with a ‘no such number’ message in Norwegian – which oddly enough I do speak – after an early attempt), a connection was made, ring, ring, and upon the line being answered we’re greeted by the piercing whine of the Rockport church’s fax machine. Right. Trying again, and having one sort-of-willing lady who was stuck there counting the offering, it was a real relief and joy to hear Jay Reed’s voice, and after a bit of context explanation and reminder, he was put on the phone with Princess Nzama for an initial conversation.
Ruthann had meanwhile done good work with the youth and with the Sunday school teacher, so in sequence after finishing with Princess, Jay was handed off first to Pretty Mhlongo, and after her to Mbali Mgwaba, a young lady in the youth group, and to Lindokuhle Hlongwa, a young man from the youth group. Lastly, Jay spoke with Eric Miya, the Treasurer and deacon, who’d officiated at the morning’s service. We know from Jay that in his several conversations he had some good and some not quite so good luck in grasping all that was said to him, some of it we’d guess being the context of the topics discussed, some of it being idiomatic differences between our respective variants of the English language and the accents we employ, and some of it being the vagaries of cell phone communication. It’s the great hope that as Jay and others at Rockport have further and more frequent conversations with particular individuals at Emphusheni, the individual and collective differences in the way in which people here speak our shared language will begin to be more familiar, and with the build-up of experience in communicating with each other, that communication will continuously improve. It's worth remembering that this quibble is experienced as well from this side, and most importantly, that it alleviates -- truly! -- with practice.
On a worrywart side-note, Jan was fretting a bit, as the conversations went so well that they ran on for a goodly while, that the prepaid amount loaded on our cell phone for this day's activity might be exceeded, and things would just go blank at an untoward moment; but they held together well enough, and the phone's still working.
The length of the calls also caused a bit of disruption of the serving of the very nice lamb roast luncheon that had been prepared just for us guests and deacon Miya, laid out at the manse, but eventually we were all gathered there for a nice time in further conversation with him, learning about his work as a supervisor of a manufacturing department of a filter company and talking generally about the relationship effort, and the two churches. Mrs. Miya, who is a caterer, had been mainly responsible for the meal; while we had the chance to thank her and the other women who helped out, they did not join us at the table for the meal – as is traditional, they remained in the kitchen area, granted talking away merrily amongst themselves.
Nomfundo Luvuno was up and about by this time, and we did have the opportunity to touch base with her as well about certain aspects of the relationship effort, including the spreading of the information from and about Rockport to other contact persons at Emphusheni and to the broader congregation, over the coming period. Nomfundo could have looked less miserable, but assured us she was on the mend from her cold.
As we were preparing to leave, we were blocked from the way we had arrived, which was our intended route of exit, by another church’s funeral procession, coming by to the nearby cemetery. Eric guided us out along a back dirt road, through narrow gaps between residences and outbuildings through to the main road back to Isipingo, and we drove back down to the highway for the return to the different world of the city.
But this place we'd been is also a place that God sees.
Amahubo 33: 13-15:
UJehova uyabheka esezulwini;
Uyababona bonke abantwana babantu.
Esendaweni lapho ehlala khona
Uyababuka bonke abakhileyo ezweni,
Yena owadala izinhliziyo zabo bonke,
Oqaphela zonke izenzo zabo.
Psalm 33:13-15:
The Lord looks down from heaven,
He sees all humankind;
From where he sits enthroned he looks forth
On all the inhabitants of the earth,
He who fashions the hearts of them all,
And observes all their deeds.